Understood at last’?: A memetic analysis of Beethoven’s ‘bloody fist

Abstract

As a singular moment in the western canon, the opening of the recapitulation in the first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony has prompted a variety of structural and expressive readings. This paper explores its intertextual connections with Mozart’s Don Giovanni from a memetic perspective, outlining certain extra-musical interpretations, including some related to Susan McClary’s controversial reading of the passage, one might infer from the strong musical connections.